


Counted Up These Costs

by Tabithian



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comic), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:17:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dick." They cannot hold their home, cannot protect their people, not like this. Not like this. "I know where we can go."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counted Up These Costs

The wages of the war they were born into have taken their toll, taken their loved ones time and again, and this latest. Bruce's loss is a blow they can not afford, it has weakened them, and they stand little chance against the combined might of their enemies.

"We stay, then, and fight to the last!" Damian shouts, sorrow traded for rage. "It is what he would want!"

"No," Dick says, placing a hand on Damian's shoulder. "He wouldn't, Damian." Love, crumbling under the weight of sorrow and grief and loss, held up by hope, small and fading.

"Dick." They cannot hold their home, cannot protect their people, not like this. Not like this. "I know where we can go." 

The haunted forest bordering the northern edge of their lands where not even the Joker's men venture, long ago driven away. Where many have gone and none returned. Stories have sprung up in the small settlements nearby of a vengeful ghost, blood and fury, death incarnate. Tim had ridden there on Bruce's behalf in the past to settle arguments among the people there, had stayed and shared their hearths, broken bread with them. Listened to their tales of this ghost, this specter, that dealt brutal vengeance upon those who dared trespass in its forest, and yet.

 

_"My girl, my beautiful little girl," one woman cries, hugging a sweet-eyed child to her. "It saved her, brought her home safe to me."_

_"My sons, my sons," another says. "Dead and gone, lost in the wilderness in a storm, but he brought them home to me."_

_"My wife, my wife," a widower says. "Stolen away by bandits, lost to me, and he gave her justice."_

 

"Tim?" A spark of hope, sputtering, sputtering.

 

_Tim's trek into the forest, dark and dank. Sounds echoing oddly, eery. Animal cries that sounded like screams, wails. The sounds of tree branches, dry and brittle snapping underfoot like bone breaking. A glimpse, that and nothing more, of a figure, darting between the trees. Flash of red, swallowed up by darkness._

 

"The northern forest," Tim says. Where even the Joker's men no longer venture, the few who dared leaving behind only their bones hanging from the trees like chimes, bleached by the sun. 

Damian hisses, sharp intake of breath. "Have you gone mad?"

And no. The Joker's men dare not venture there, and even Ivy's reach does not extend that far, the forest deaf to her. 

"Where else would we go, Damian?" he asks. There is nowhere else for them. Risk death with the forest's ghost, or stay and die at the hands of their enemies. They are weak now, broken. In time they can return, stronger than before and reclaim their lands, their people, but not if they are dead, slaughtered like cattle for foolish pride.

"Are you sure?" Dick is tired, weighed down by the burden of family and duty and honor. By grief, by love. So many burdens, and still he looks for more. For them, for their people.

"Where else would we go?" Tim asks again. Where else would they go?

********

They are forced to sneak out of their home, their lands like thieves in the night. Alfred a quiet pillar of support always steady in the face of the fiercest storms. Dick tired and heartworn, leading the way. Damian angry and grieving, seeking to place blame. And Tim, always Tim.

"Here," he says, taking the leads for Dick's mount. Although Dick is fading fast, he still offers resistance, stubborn and foolish. Tim pretends not to hear, placing him in Alfred's hands for safekeeping as he urges his mount to the front. Titus trots ahead, circling around back to pad along at Damian's side, always loyal.

"...Drake."

Tim looks back to Damian, angry, grieving. 

"What do you know of the ghost that resides in the forest?"

Ah. "Only what the people in the settlements have told me." What Tim saw. Man or ghost or beast, he cannot be sure of, but he thinks. He thinks. "It is a being who values justice." In so far as it serves its purpose. "The people do not fear it."

 

_Children, playing in the shadow of the forest's edge, braiding flowers in their hair and leaving small trinkets for their ghost. Villagers leaving food, wine, clothing for the ghost, as thanks or tribute, perhaps both._

_Tim's last day there, a final walk along the forest's edge. A small brooch, tarnished by time. The design familiar, brother to the one Tim wore. Hanging from a tree from a ribbon, its true color lost to time, to the elements, but he knows, knows, it was once red, like the breast of a robin._

 

"I know enough, Damian," Tim says, hoping he's speaking truth. That he is not placing what little hope he has left in a fantasy, lingering grief for a life lost long ago.

"Enough?" Wary, suspicious. Damian scowls, he has never felt fondness or affection for Tim. "To lead us to our deaths, perhaps," he mutters, dropping back to keep pace with the others.

Tim sighs, looks behind - anger and grief so tightly tangled he cannot tell one from another. Looks ahead - uncertainty, hope stretched thin to breaking. "Perhaps," he says, voice little more than a whisper. "Perhaps."


End file.
